Open Source Nursery


We just planted out 100 more fruit trees – which we grafted back in spring. We upgraded the string trimmer to a chain, mowed down a path, planted, fertilized, and mulched heavily:

Regarding the funding baskets deployed 2 weeks ago in our progress update, thank you to everyone who donated. Here’s the present status:

As of today, the Power Cube II is over the brim, and the others need work. The total collected so far is $1575, or 34% of the total $4700, which is decent for the half-way point of the month funding period. Read the announcement to get excited about what we are doing – and then chip in if you can. We’ve got more vision than money, still, though we think this can turn around any day if we get a couple of sales from our first Full Product Release. It appears that this will take more than passive marketing on our side – but we are now well-positioned to produce The Liberator, with our new 150 ton hole puncher and heavy-duty drill press added to our capacity pool.

We’ll be migrating to beex.org for crowd funding purposes – as one of our True Fans is behind this platform, and we are discussing how beex.org can provide support in collaboration, networking, and branding towards the goals of post-scarcity economics.
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Categories: Farm Equipment, Local Food Systems, Open Source Agroecology (OSA), Open Source Nursery, Permaculture, String Trimmer

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Here is a video produced by Sean, on the agriculture overview of Factor e Farm:

The bottom line is that resilience in food is not difficult to come by, but it presently requires more energy than we have with 2 full time people – engaged fully in open source equipment development. We are prioritizing technical development, such that appropriate-technology mechanized agriculture makes food provision effective. Our next priorities in terms of the type of generalists we’d like to have at Factor e Farm is 2 more flexible fabricators and the open source agroecologist. The flexible fabricators should generalize in power electronics and CNC controls, and the agroecologics should generalize in agricultural and processing equipment development.

Categories: Local Food Systems, Natural History, Open Source Agroecology (OSA), Open Source Nursery, Permaculture

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The fruit propagation workshop went well. Two people showed up. 2 weeks later, these cherry trees are already budding out:

We got a donation of 50 more EMLA 111 apple rootstocks, which can be obtained from Willamette Nurseries for under 70 cents each. These are rooted branch cuttings, and look like this: (more…)

Categories: Open Source Agroecology (OSA), Open Source Nursery

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We will be holding our annual Plant Propagation Workshop on March 20. See the documentation from last year’s workshop – blog post and announcement.

This year, our workshop will feature more raspberry propagation, plus grafting of apple, pear, peach, apricot, plum, and cherry. We will be using root stocks and scionwood from our nursery plantings. The workshop will take place at Factor e Farm from 1 to 4 PM on Saturday, March 20. We will start with a brief overview of the open source agroecology program that we’re pursuing, to set a context for our plant propagation efforts. The admission is free for True Fans, and $40 for others, and you may be able to take some plants home with you. We will also give a brief tour of our facilities. Email us or call to sign up or for more information, and if you are signing up, payment must be received by March 13. See other details from the announcement above.

Categories: Diet, Education, Factor e Farm, Open Source Agroecology (OSA), Open Source Nursery, Permaculture, Tour, Workshops

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MicroTrac achieved zero turn motion. If one walks around rapidly, one can turn the walk-behind tractor around in place. MicroTrac is turning out to be a beautiful freak:

To do this, we added two small, freely-turning wheels to MicroTrac. This replaced the rigid wheels from the first test run. In that test run, we discovered that we want a greater degree of turning flexibility, because MicroTrac is so long – hence the zero turn wheels. (more…)

Categories: Abundance, Diet, Farm Equipment, LifeTrac, Local Food Systems, MicroTrac, Open Engineering, Open Source Nursery, Open Source Tiller, Permaculture

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Here is the natural history of Factor e Farm just at the beginning of plantlife leafing out – May 1 prior to my Austria trip. We go through the wild areas, garden, orchard, and greenhouse. This is a major contrast to what the place looks like right now. I will blog about that in my next post – showing both the full greenness of the place and the permacultural developments that happened in the last month since Ben arrived.

Categories: Animals, Goats, Natural History, Open Source Nursery, Open Source Permaculture, Permaculture, Seasons, Visiting

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The plant propagation workshop of last weekend did not offer a chance for good documentation of the process details, so here’s another take. We propagated 200 raspberries and about 50 peaches and apricots. We’ll need to feed a village.

Categories: Open Source Nursery

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